December 31 - Today in Science History

DECEMBER 31 - BIRTHS
Vaughan F. R. Jones
1990 (source)	Born 31 Dec 1952 Vaughan Frederick Randal Jones is a New Zealand mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1990 for his study of functional analysis and knot theory. In 1984, Jones discovered a relationship between von Neumann algebras and geometric topology. As a result, he found a new polynomial invariant for knots and links in 3-space. It was a complete surprise because his invariant had been missed completely by topologists, in spite of intense activity in closely related areas during the preceding 60 years.
Jeremy Bernstein
(source)	Born 31 Dec 1929 American physicist, educator, and writer widely known for the clarity of his writing for the lay reader on the major issues of modern physics. He was a staff writer for the New Yorker for over 30 years until 1993. He has held appointments at the Institute for Advanced Study, Brookhaven National Laboratory, CERN, Oxford, the University of Islamabad, and the Ecole Polytechnique. Berstein has written over 50 technical papers as well as his books popularizing science including Albert Einstein; Cranks, Quarks, and the Cosmos and A Theory for Everything. His passion for science was launched after he entered Harvard University, thereafter combining it with a talent as a writer. Hitler's Uranium Club: The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall by Jeremy Bernstein.
Sir Eric Thompson
(source)	Born 31 Dec 1898; died 9 Sep 1975. Sir J(ohn) Eric S(idney) Thompson was a leading English ethnographer of the Mayan people. Thompson devoted his life to the study of Mayan culture and was able to extensively decipher early Mayan glyphs, determining that, contrary to prevailing belief, they contained historical as well as ritualistic and religious records. Sir Eric Thompson believed that Maya society was organized around religion, specifically star-worship. He thought that the Maya lived peacefully in villages and were ruled by priests that were more concerned with making astronomical calculation than political competition for power. With the discovery during the 1980's of how to decipher the Maya language, it was learned that almost every aspect of the traditional view of the Maya was wrong. Maya Archaeologist, by John Eric Sidney Thompson.
Robert Grant Aitken
(source)	Born 31 Dec 1864; died 29 Oct 1951. American astronomer who specialized in the study of double stars, of which he discovered more than 3,000. He worked at the Lick Observatory from 1895 to 1935, becoming director from 1930. Aitken made systematic surveys of binary stars, measuring their positions visually. His massive New General Catalogue of Double Stars within 120 degrees of the North Pole allowed orbit determinations which increased astronomers' knowledge of stellar masses. He also measured positions of comets and planetary satellites and computed orbits. He wrote an important book on binary stars, and he lectured and wrote widely for the public.
Sir William Withey Gull
July 1881 (source)	Born 31 Dec 1816; died 29 Jan 1890. (1st Baronet) leading English physician of his time, lecturer and physician at Guy's Hospital, London, and an outstanding clinical teacher. In 1862, Gull described clinical signs of syringomyelia. In 1874, Gull recognized and described the disease known as Gull's disease - myxoedema with the atrophy of the thyroid gland - which he regarded correctly as the adult form of cretinism. The term Anorexia Nervosa, first originated with Gull in 1874, meaning a "nervous loss of appetite," for the condition first described by the physician, Richard Morton (1689). He believed in minimal use of drugs ("The road to a clinic goes through the pathologic museum and not through the apothecary's shop").
Johann Spurzheim
(source)	Born 31 Dec 1776; died 10 Nov 1832. German physician who popularized phrenology, a word he coined to describe the determination of character, personality traits, and criminality on the external shape of the skull (now discredited as a pseudoscience). He was a student of German physician Franz Joseph Gall in Paris, who developed "craniology" which linked cerebral functions to localized areas of the brain and associated them with underlying attributes of the human personality. Spurzheim travelled in Europe and Great Britain teaching phrenology. He influenced a Scottish lawyer, George Combe, who further promoted phrenology and wrote several works on the subject.«
Hermann Boerhaave
(source)	Born 31 Dec 1668; died 23 Sep 1738. Dutch physician and professor of medicine who was the first great clinical, or "bedside," teacher. To combine practice with theory, Boerhaave founded a hospital in which he gave clinical instruction to his pupils, thus introducing the clinical method into medical education. In 1718 he became professor of chemistry, and in 1724 he published Elementa Chemiae (Elements of Chemistry), a work that did much to make the science of chemistry clear and intelligible. He also made contributions in the field of botany.
Andreas Vesalius
(source)	Born 31 Dec 1514; died 15 Oct 1564 Flemish anatomist who, as a university teacher insisted on conducting detailed dissections on human cadavers personally. His De humani corporis fabrica (On the structure of the human body) of 1543 marked a real departure from the work of the 2nd-century anatomist Galen, and provided detailed and accessible information against which future anatomists could compare their observations. Vesalius was the teacher of Gabriel Fallopius, who was in turn tutor to Hieronymous Fabricius, who then taught William Harvey. This lineage supervised the most dramatic reassessment of the anatomy and function of the human body that had occurred for centuries — and can be said to have started the modern science of medicine.

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DECEMBER 31 - DEATHS

Kenneth L. Pike
(source)	Died 31 Dec 2000 (born 9 Jun 1912) Kenneth L(ee) Pike was a U.S. linguist and anthropologist known for his studies of the aboriginal languages of Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, New Guinea, Java, Ghana, Nigeria, Australia, Nepal, and the Philippines. He was also the originator of tagmemics which extends to the analysis of grammar and behavior the concepts used in phonology so as to view all elements as part of a system. He distinguished between the concept of emic and etic, terms he coined in 1954. Etic refers to a trained observer's perception of the uninterpreted "raw" data. Emic refers to how that data is interpreted by an "insider" to the system.
Arsène d'Arsonval
(source)	Died 31 Dec 1940 (born 8 Jun 1851) Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval was a French physician and physicist who was a pioneer in therapeutic use of electricity, heat, and light. He designed the first reflecting moving coil galvanometer for measurement of a small electric current (1882). Arsonval's early research into animal heat, muscle contraction, and electrophysiology led to his invention of devices used to treat diseases through electricity. He created high-frequency currents used to treat diseases of the skin and mucous membranes (1890), and showed that a human being could conduct an alternating current strong enough to light an electric lamp (1892).
Cornelia Maria Clapp
(source)	Died 31 Dec 1934 (born 17 Mar 1849) American zoologist and educator whose influence as a teacher was great and enduring in a period when the world of science was just opening to women. She became a professor of zoology at Mt. Holyoke College, where she developed a vivid laboratory method of instruction that proved highly effective. Clapp was active in the research group at the then newly established (1888) Marine Biology Lab at Woods Hole, Mass. She carried on research there, primarily in the field of embryology. She published little during her career, her major influence being to extend scientific knowledge and opportunity to women through education.
Seth Carlo Chandler
(source)	Died 31 Dec 1913 (born 17 Sep 1846) Seth Carlo Chandler, Jr. was an American astronomer best known for his discovery (1884-85) of the Chandler Wobble, a complex movement in the Earth's axis of rotation (now refered to as polar motion) that causes latitude to vary with a period of 14 months. His interests were much wider than this single subject, however, and he made substantial contributions to such diverse areas of astronomy as cataloging and monitoring variable stars, the independent discovery of the nova T Coronae, improving the estimate of the constant of aberration, and computing the orbital parameters of minor planets and comets. His publications totaled more than 200.
Aleksandr Popov
(source)	Died 31 Dec 1905 (born 4 Mar 1859) Physicist and electrical engineer acclaimed in Russia as the inventor of radio. He became an instructor at the Russian Navy's Torpedo School. Learning of Hertz's work, in 1895 Popov constructed an apparatus that could register electrical disturbances due to lightning. He applied it for receiving man-made signals. In 1896, he demonstrated a radiotelegraph system which transmitted Morse code. In Feb 1904, Popov first demonstrated radio transmission of the human voice. His invention was first used by the Russian navy. However, Russia's first radio factory was established by the Marconi company.
James David Forbes
(source)	Died 31 Dec 1868 (born 20 Apr 1809) Scottish physicist noted for his research on heat conduction and glaciers. In 1836-44, he described the polarization (alignment of waves to vibrate in a plane) of radiant infrared heat by the mineral tourmaline, by transmission through a bundle of thin mica plates, and by reflection from the surfaces of a pile of mica plates. In 1846 he began experiments on the temperature of the Earth at different depths and in different soils near Edinburgh. Later he investigated the laws of heat conduction in bars, and in his last piece of work reported that iron conducts heat less efficiently as its temperature rises. He was among the first to study glacier movements and was involved with Tyndall in the great glacier controversy of the 1850s.
James Cochran
	Died 31 Dec 1846 (born 1763) American inventor of the manufacture of cut nails. Cut nails are triangular in shape, made from cutting across bar stock at a slight angle. While Cochran was a brass-founder in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin frequently visited his shop. Cochran also claimed to have made the first copper cents in the U.S. After settling in Genesee County, NY., in 1802, as one of the county’s first pioneers, he set up a bell foundry business on Bank Street (thence referred to as “Dingle Alley” after Cochran’s constant bell testing). He also cast brass newels for staircases and window springs with rollers.«
John Flamsteed
(source)	Died 31 Dec 1719 (born 19 Aug 1646) English astronomer who established the Greenwich Observatory, as one of a group of scientists who convinced King Charles II to build a national observatory. Appointed the first Astronomer Royal (1675-1719), Flamsteed was devoted to astronomical measurement, with the task of accurately providing the positions of stars for use in navigation. He eventually produced the first star catalogue, which gave the positions of nearly 3,000 stars. He also worked on the motions of the sun and moon, tidal tables, and was one of the only astronomers to maintain the comets of 1680-1681 were the same, viewed before and after passing around the sun. A quarrelsome man, he argued with Newton and Halley over their requests for access to his astronomical observations.
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli
(source)	Died 31 Dec 1679 (born 28 Jan 1608) Italian physiologist who was the first to explain muscular movement and other body functions according to the laws of statics and dynamics. He correctly described the action of the skeleton and muscles in terms of levers, and produced detailed descriptions of bird flight. His De motu animalium (Rome, 1680) was an attempt to extend to biology the rigorous analytical and geometrical method developed by Galileo in the field of mechanics. In 1649, he published a work on malignant fevers. He attributed disease not to astrological causes but to something that entered the body and could be cured chemically. He carried out extensive anatomical dissections, investiged volcanoes and was the first to suggest the idea that comets travel in a parabolic path.



DECEMBER 31 - EVENTS

Smallpox virus
(source)	In 1993, the last research samples of the smallpox virus were scheduled to be destroyed. Smallpox was the world's most dreaded plagues until 1977, when it was declared eradicated. However, some scientists who wanted to continue research on the virus stopped the destruction plan. The remaining frozen samples are in Moscow, Russia, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, U.S., ready to make vaccine should it ever again be necessary. The virus is extremely stable and has not changed in hundreds or even thousands of years. Smallpox (variola) is caused by a poxvirus and was spread from person to person by contact with skin lesions or via the respiratory tract. Its name comes from the pockmarks on the skin that it caused.
Radioelectric battery
	In 1951, the first battery to convert radioactive energy to electrical was announced. Invented by Philip Edwin Ohmart of Cincinnati, Ohio, it consisted of two electrochemically dissimilar electrodes separated by a filling gas that was ionized by exposure to the nuclear energy to produce electrical current. Ohmart obtained an emf efficiency of .01% on a cell using magnesium dioxide and lead-dioxide with argon as the gas and Ag¹¹⁰ as the radioactive source.
Breath test
(source)	In 1938, the "drunkometer," the first breath test for car drivers, invented by Dr Rolla N. Harger of Indiana University School of Medicine, was officially introduced in Indianapolis. It was the first successful machine for testing human blood alcohol content by breath analysis. He gave the first "short course" on chemical tests for intoxication (1937). By 1948, Harger and other IU faculty began one-week courses on breath alcohol testing sponsored by the National Safety Council's Committee on Tests for Intoxication. Robert F. Borkenstein, an instructor on those courses later invented the Breathalyzer (1954), a more practical, highly portable instrument for testing breath alcohol. The Drunkometer had required re-calibration when it was moved from place to place.
Monopoly
(source)	In 1935, a patent was issued for the game of Monopoly assigned to Parker Brothers, Inc., by Charles Darrow of Pennsylvania (No. 2,026,082). The patent titled it a "Board Game Apparatus" and described it as "intended primarily to provide a game of barter, thus involving trading and bargaining" in which "much of the interest in the game lies in trading and in striking shrewd bargains." Illustrations included with the patent showed not only the playing board and pieces, but also 22 "Title cards of the respective Real Estate holdings," Utilities, Chance and Community Chest cards, and the scrip money. The play of the game was described that on the throw of the dice, the players may move onto Real Estate locations which they then acquire.
Edison's light
	In 1879, inventor Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrated his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park, New Jersey. This was not the first electric light, however, since arc lights were already in use for illumination of large areas, such as department stores and streets lighting. Neither was he the first inventor to experiment with incandescent lamps (which use electricity to heat a thin strip of material, the filament, to glow at a high temperature). However, Edison's lamp was the first to be practical, because he had solved problems with short-lived filaments. After testing many materials, he found a suitable carbonized filament. He also created a good vacuum in the globe, to remove oxygen. His socket mount - the Edison screw base - is still in use.«
Reaper
	In 1833, a patent was issued to Obed Hussy of Maryland for a reaper "which embodied the now familiar cutter bar playing between double guard fingers. It was drawn by horses hitched in front, and had a side cut and a platform on which the operator stood who raked off the grain."* McCormick's reaper patent was issued 21 Jun 1834. Both were practical, and in greatly improved form were displayed and in competition at the 1851 London World's Fair where the judges awarded the premium to McCormick. However, later that year at another competition it was Hussy's machine that received the award. At the close of that competition, the Prince of Wales ordered two of Hussy's machines.«
Gas lights in London
	In 1813, Westminster Bridge in London was illuminated with gas lights. Soon after, the oil lights in the streets of St. Margaret's, Westminster, were replaced with gas lights. About a year later, in 1815, the Guildhall was also lighted by gas.« [Date source: Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia, 1893 edition.]